Ever wonder who pierces stars like Beyoncé and Jessica Alba? More often than not, it’s Brian Keith Thompson. The owner of LA’s Body Electric Tattoo & Piercing has needled more than his fair share of stars big and small, as his love for perfect placement and top-notch jewelry resonates with everyone from the poorest college students to the richest celebrities.

But before he was poking holes in the rich and famous, Thompson was just a tattoo-collecting client of Body Electric. At the time when he purchased the shop, Thompson had no experience in either tattooing or piercing. It made him a bit of an outsider and caused some controversy within the industry, but the piercer is perfectly comfortable with setting a new standard for LA’s famous body modification scene.

“For years before I got into this, piercers were frowned upon and laughed at in tattoo studios,” Thompson says. “They got no respect, and I changed that. The tattoo artists who work for me respect them, and they see how hard they work and how much money they make. You can do anything good or bad. I read something that said ‘Just because you have a title doesn’t make you a professional.’ There’s good and bad everywhere.”

After building a career as a corporate engineer and experiencing everything from being a Marine to spending some time in prison before piercing, Thompson had a lifetime’s worth of knowledge before diving headfirst into Body Electric... READ MORE